


Despair

by tanarill



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Danger, Dorks in Love, Forgiveness, Friendship, Injury Recovery, Intrigue, Kissing, Living, Love, M/M, Magic, Male-Female Friendship, Memory Loss, Names, Personal Growth, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prophetic Visions, Recovered Memories, Sad, Smile, Snow, hero - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-03
Updated: 2008-07-03
Packaged: 2021-02-20 08:17:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22078918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanarill/pseuds/tanarill
Summary: How else would you recognize the good times, if you didn't have the bad?
Relationships: Wyatt Cain/Glitch
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	Despair

The first thing he heard when he woke up was someone sob, "Don't you _dare_ die on me again, Sweetheart" and that single statement pretty much defined their relationship. He couldn't remember much of the time he'd spent as two halves of a brain, or rather he _did_ so vividly it hurt to even think about examining those memories, but he remembered Cain. Of course, this was much later, when he'd remembered anything at all. At the time, he thought the name 'Cain' and a sense of being entombed in ice, but it didn't freeze, it _burnt_ and held and protected. That thought apparently took too much effort, though, because when he next woke up it was a very long time later.

"Hello?" he croaked, and was surprised to find his voice so raw. It shouldn't sound like that, but if he tried to think what it _ought_ to sound like he couldn't think of anything at all.

It was enough, though, because the person next to him, the safety-ice person dozing in the chair, woke immediately and said, "Glitch?"

"I don't know," he said, because it was the truth. The name was ringing bells, but they were the kind that tolled out the silence-places where things had been lost. "I can't _think_." And that seemed _wrong_ too, as if he were made for thinking and the fogginess in his mind was hiding a mountain.

"Oh," said Cain, and he sounded so, so sad, as if he'd lost something so valuable that nothing could ever repay the loss.

He smiled brightly, though waiting for his synapses to fire seemed like waiting for arrays of evacuated glass tubes to work, and said, "I need more time," which applied to the glacial speed of his thoughts but seemed to cheer Cain - Cain? - _Cain_.

The fluffy whiteness blanketing his mind did not recede. He sensed, in a weird way that involved noticing a lot of little things, that this made Cain sad. He honestly _tried_ to remember, but whatever was hiding did not want to be revealed and whenever he went off determined to beat it, he came back hours later, with no memory of the time intervening. Oddly, new things he remembered with a stunning accuracy.

Cain was the icy knight, and he tasted of tin and the silence of graveyards.

Raw was the soul-taster, and he knew a language to describe what he felt.

DG was the princess, and she was a perfectly flawed diamond.

Jeb was the youth, and he looked on with eyes that both pitied and requested.

Azkadellia was the other princess, and she smiled warmly and wept, sometimes, and he sensed a great debt and something in his memory flared.

They said his name had been Ambrose, and then it had been Glitch. He wondered who he had been.

One day, he asked Azkadellia.

"You were the most brilliant man ever to have walked the OZ, and so I had to get rid of you."

"Why would you get rid of me?" he asked, puzzled.

"I used to be-not very nice," she said. "The opposite of nice. I might not ever be able to repay the OZ for what I did."

"I forgive you," he said, because he did. There was nothing she could have done that he would not forgive her for.

He dreamed of snow, and a heavy burden.

One day, he asked Jeb.

"You were the hero. Everything that happened, saving the OZ, saving my dad, it was because of you."

"I saved your dad?" he asked.

"From himself," Jeb explained.

He dreamed of disbelief and reunions.

One day, he asked DG.

"You were the most insane best friend I ever had," she said, smiling brokenly.

"Hey, now. You didn't break me."

"I didn't fix you either. What good is this Light if you can't help people with it?"

He shrugged, and said, "Take it with you into dark places."

He dreamed of confused smiles and bravery.

One day, he asked Raw.

"A path," said the Seer. "The way ahead."

He dreamed of jumping from an impossible place, and living.

One day, he asked Cain.

"The most pigheaded, beautiful, wonderful headcase in the OZ."

"You loved me." It was not a question.

"Still do, even if you never remember."

He nodded.

He dreamed of a slap, and the sound of Sweetheart, and carried that back with him.

He kissed Cain.

He kissed Cain like Cain was life itself, like Cain was the only reason to live, because he was. Cain responded, and they _devoured_ each other whole.

"I can remember you," he said, later. "Everything else is like bubbly glass, but you are a place to stand."

He fought off the mist. It took time, until one day he woke up and knew everything that he was missing, and where to find it. He spent hours just walking, dusting off old memories and smiling a little sadly, because Ambrose was dead.

He told Cain that he knew who he wasn't, and that Glitch was dead too. Cain said, "I see," and looked very nearly broken until he smiled and explained, "A falcon that learns to fly can't return to the egg."

One day, he woke up and said, "Cain."

"Sweetheart?"

"Elpidius."

"What?"

"My name. It's Elpidius. Because I mean too many things to too many people, and I don't think I will ever be any of those people again. But I can be hope."

Cain kissed him, and said, "You will always be my Sweetheart."

**Author's Note:**

> I should have put this up on Friday. Oh well.
> 
> Happy New Year \o/


End file.
